So, playing around with my first attempt at a circuit using an OpAmp, I am now simply in despair with these 741. Apparently they are "outdated" as any post even related to them is first replied to with a comment along the lines saying as much.
And while I have some LM324 at hand, the project I want only needs a simple comparator so wasting 4 OpAmps on it is not really something I want to do if I can avoid it.
That said, while most posts I read said the 741 is "obsolete", in my project, it seems completely non-functional. The basic circuit works with the LM324 so I don't even know what I'm doing wrong?!
I'm connecting Vcc+ to 5V and Vcc- to GND. Connecting In+ to Vcc+ and In- to Vcc-, I get some 4.8V on the output, which seems fine. With In+ on Vcc- and In- on Vcc+ I get 1.8V which is a bit much compared to the Vcc- I was expecting but I can make it work.
The real problem comes when I try to use it as a comparator as the output voltage never even budges away from the 4.8V. Even when the difference between In+ and In- stands at -0.8V. I also tried using a 10k potentiometer on the Offset Null inputs as the datasheet suggested to no avail.
Again, I understand that they are outdated but how can it be that they just don't work at all? I mean, there has to be something I'm doing wrong, no?